Section 72Y. As used in this section, the following words, unless the context clearly requires otherwise, shall have the following meaning:

''Health care facility'', a hospital, institution for the care of unwed mothers or clinic, as defined in section fifty-two; a long-term facility, which is an infirmary maintained in a town, a convalescent or nursing home, a rest home or a charitable home for the aged, as defined in section seventy-one; a clinical laboratory subject to licensing under chapter one hundred and eleven D, a public medical institution, which is any medical institution, and, after December first, nineteen hundred and seventy-two, any institution, for the mentally ill or retarded, supported in whole or in part by public funds, staffed by professional, medical and nursing personnel and providing medical care, in accordance with standards established through licensing, approval or certification for participation in programs administered under Titles XVIII and XIX of the Federal Social Security Act, by the department of public health; and any part of such facilities; provided, however, that ''health care facility'' shall not include a facility operated by and for persons who rely exclusively upon treatment by spiritual means through prayer for healing, in accordance with the creed or tenets of a church or religious denomination and in which health care by or under the supervision of doctors of medicine, osteopathy, or dentistry is not provided.

''Nursing pool'', any person, firm, corporation, partnership, or association engaged for hire in the business of providing or procuring temporary employment in health care facilities for medical personnel including but not limited to nurses, nursing assistants, nurses' aides, and orderlies. ''Nursing Pool'' shall not include an individual who only engages in providing his or her own services on a temporary basis to health care facilities.

A person who operates a nursing pool shall register the pool with the commissioner. Each separate location of the business of a nursing pool shall have a separate registration.

The commissioner, by regulation, shall establish forms and procedures for the processing of nursing pool registration applications, including the payment of a reasonable registration fee.

The commissioner, by regulation, shall establish minimum standards for the registration and operation of a nursing pool. The regulations shall be designed to protect the public's right to high quality health care by assuring that nursing pools employ competent and qualified nursing personnel, and that such nursing personnel are provided to health care facilities in a way to meet the needs of residents and patients.

The executive office of health and human services, in cooperation with the department of public health, shall establish by regulation reasonable rates of payment pursuant to this section and section 13D of chapter 118E for services provided by nursing pools registered with the department of public health. A pool shall not bill or receive payments from health care facilities at a rate greater than the rate established pursuant to this section and section 13D of chapter 118E.

No such regulation shall allow reimbursement for the use of personnel from nursing pools which are not registered pursuant to this section.

Regulations promulgated pursuant to this section shall comply with chapter thirty A.

Any nursing pool for which a rate is set pursuant to this section shall be subject to the duties and responsibilities set forth in section thirty-five of chapter six A, whether or not receiving payment from a governmental unit.